A link from a post from my friend Nick: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/08/moral-relativism
My response:
Someone brilliantly answered the belief that personhood begins at conception by proposing a thought experiment. Ask such a believer what he or she would do in the following situation:
You are alone in a building, except for a freezer unit containing several hundred frozen human ova which have been fertilized, but which remain in the single cell stage, and a three month old baby. You receive a warning that a bomb will destroy the building in a few minutes. You can't carry out both the freezer and the baby. You must take one or the other. There will be no time to return to save the one left behind.
Which do you save?
If the ova are fully human, you must save them. Hundreds of innocent lives will be saved while one innocent life will be lost.
I doubt even the most radical believer in personhood would actually leave the baby to die and save the fertilized eggs. Of course, extremism IS extreme, so maybe I'm wrong.
I think everyone dislikes, and many hate abortion, but what is the alternative? Do Americans really want a return to the dark days of illegal and amateur efforts to end pregnancy? It did not save the lives of the unborn, and it often took the mother to her grave. Legal abortion with reasonable restrictions may be disturbing, but it is better than the horrors of the past.
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